30 October 2013

This post is
related to my #iwanttobelieve campaign and thereby also to
yesterday's post. I'm using the other half of my funny flying saucer
squash today. Please read more about it and have a look at the Flying saucer squash pies.

This
dish is a great mix of sweet and spicy and smoky. I think that the
honey glaze works very nicely with squash accentuating its natural
sweetness, and chipotle and smoky cheese make a great extra flavour
to a potato mash.

For
the squash

½
flying saucer squash

2tbsp
olive oil

2tbsp
honey

About
10 fresh sage leaves

1tsp
sea salt

For
the mash

500g
potatoes

1
dried chipotle chili

1
garlic clove

100g
Applewood smoked Cheddar

1tsp
sea salt / chipotle sea salt

Butter

Cut
the squash into generous wedges along the star shapes of it. There's
no need to peel it. Place the wedges into an oven dish and brush them
lightly all over with olive oil. Roast them at 180-200C for about 30
minutes and sometimes turn them over.

Now
also start the mash. Peel the potatoes and boil them in salted water
until they are done, in approximately 30 minutes. Chop the chipotle
and garlic finely and grate the cheese.

Prepare
the glaze for the squash. Pour honey into a bowl and add about one
tablespoon olive oil to it. Chop the sage finely and add it and and
salt to the bowl.

When
the squash is already mainly roasted, glaze it with the honey mix and
put back into the oven for further 20 minutes or until you are happy
with the glazing and the squash. Also now keep turning the wedges
over occasionally and brush more glaze on them if needed.

Heat
some butter in a pan and lightly fry the garlic and chipotle in
there. When the potatoes are boiled, mash them and add the garlic,
chili, salt and cheese to them. Mix to a smooth texture.

29 October 2013

Maybe
some of you, dear readers, have already seen my mysterious
#iwanttobelieve
tweets predicting the arrival of a flying saucer squash recipe. I
obtained a magnificent flying saucer squash at the Arundel food festival and wanted to feature it as my this year's spooky Halloween
ingredient par excellence.

I thought hard about it how to use this
wonderful vegetable and I decided to make two different dishes, as
that huge squash easily made two full meals, and this is the first of
them. I wanted to make a hearty autumn pie and I think it turned out
to be very tasty. The pastry is also homemade and is partly made of
spelt flour. This recipe can be made with any squash or pumpkin in
case you can't get hold of a flying saucer.

The pastry

150g spelt flour

150g wheat flour

150g butter

4-8tbsp cold water

The filling

½ flying saucer
squash

1 cup red lentils

1 cloveless garlic
(or 2-3 cloves of regular garlic)

2 shallots

1 cup oak matured
Somerset vintage cider (or other dry cider)

1tbsp vegetable
stock powder

Vegetable oil (for
roasting the squash)

Olive oil

A bunch of fresh
thyme sprigs

A small chunk of
Sussex Charmer cheese

Salt

Black pepper

1 egg (for
brushing the pastry)

Method

Make the pastry
first. Mix the flours together and pinch soft butter cubes among the
flour until the mixture reaches a similar texture to breadcrumbs. Add
cold water for binding the dough and knead it even. Wrap the dough in
cling film and let it rest in the fridge during the other
preparations.

Cut the flying
saucer in half and save the other half for later (another recipe is
coming soon to this blog!). Peel it, remove the seeds and cut it into
small cubes. Place the cubes into an oven dish and brush them with
vegetable oil. Roast the squash at 180C for about 30 minutes until
soft.

Parallel to this
rinse the red lentils and boil them in water until soft. Add
vegetable stock powder to the water for boiling.

In another large
pan heat some olive oil and sweat the shallots and garlic. Then add
the roasted squash and make a cider addition to the pan. Let it
simmer and the cider evaporate. Then also add the lentils and season
the pie filling with salt, pepper and generous amount of fresh thyme.
Add some grated hard cheese and add more vegetable stock powder or
cider if you want a heartier taste.

Then roll out the
pastry and place it into one large baking tin or smaller tins or
ramekins. Put the squash filling in and close the lid on them. Make
some air holes on the lid, which can be decorative. Brush the pastry
with a beaten egg and place also some more thyme leaves on the top.
You can also brush the edges of the pie with the egg before placing
the lid on. That way it will stick better to your main pie.

Bake the pie(s) at
200C for about 20-25 minutes. Enjoy and let the lovely pie goodness
warm your heart!

28 October 2013

I
recently bought this lovely vegetarian cookbook Alice Hart's
Vegetarian. As I bought my copy in Germany mine is called Gemüse satt!This
book has so many inspirational and tempting recipes. I want to try so
many of them. The first recipe I tried from this book was the
rigatoni pasta with chili and walnuts (p. 166-167) as a quick weekday
supper. I cut a couple of corners, such as using dried thyme, and
that's why mine looks a bit pale. However I can assure you that it
was absolutely delicious and very easy to make. I'm certain I will
make this many times more in the future.

This
is my way of making this dish.

Ingredients

250g rigatoni
pasta

150g walnuts

1 garlic clove

1 red chili

1tsp thyme (use
fresh thyme if possible)

5tbsp vegetarian
pasta cheese

Olive oil

Salt

Ground black
pepper

Method

Roast the walnuts
in a dry pan and chop them smaller after the roasting. Chop the chili
and garlic finely and heat them in a pan with some olive oil at low
heat. Grate some vegetarian pasta cheese and add it and thyme to the
pan. Remove the pan from heat and add the walnuts, salt and pepper to
it.

Boil the pasta
until it's al dente. Add couple of tablespoons of the boiling water
to the walnuts. Mix the walnut mix with the pasta and the dish is
ready to be served.

27 October 2013

And
it's pumpkin time again! I liked this dish very much and I think I
made quite a cute presentation out of it. I absolutely love potato
mash, it just goes with anything and whenever, and it really goes
well with pumpkin. These crusted pumpkins are similar to the Crusted Harlequin squash wedges,
a recipe inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi.

This is how you can prepare this dish.

The salad

Purple gem lettuce

Small tomatoes

Bread for homemade
croutons

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Nettle salt (or
normal salt)

Black pepper

The pumpkins

1-2 munchkin
pumpkins

Vegetable oil

Breadcrumbs

1 lemon's zest

Thyme

Rosemary

Parsley

Black pepper

The potato mash

300g potatoes

25g butter

100ml milk

2tsp salt

You can make the
salad first as it can wait in the fridge for the rest to be prepared.
I made my croutons of walnut bread, but you can use any nice bread
that you have. Dice the bread and place the dices in an oven dish.
Sprinkle olive oil and salt on them, stir and bake until crispy. Stir
couple of times during the baking. Cut the tomatoes in half and the
gem lettuce in slightly smaller pieces. Make a simple dressing of
balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper and mix it into the
salad. Place the croutons on the salad just before serving.

For the crusted
pumpkins I used again the cute small munchkin pumpkins. Prepare a
crust mix for the pumpkins by mixing breadcrumbs with thyme,
rosemary, parsley, lemon zest and black pepper. Use fresh herbs if
you have some as the herbiness is then more intense. Slice the
pumpkins into thin slices and place them into an oven dish. Brush
them with vegetable oil and sprinkle the herb crust on them. Bake the
crusted pumpkin slices at 180C for about 30 minutes until the
pumpkins are fully cooked and the crust is crispy.

Make the potato
mash parallel to the crusted pumpkins. I normally put butter, milk
and salt into my mash. For presentation I sprinkled nettle salt on
the top of the mash.

Place all the
components nicely on a plate for serving. This can be an autumnal
vegetarian Sunday roast or just a nice dinner.

26 October 2013

I
want to write about a nice snack today that I thoroughly enjoy. It
can be offered at parties or just enjoyed at home on dark autumn
evenings.

I
have already published my basic chickpea hummus recipe, but today's
recipe is a different hummus with a lovely spicy and smoky flavour.
The hummus is similar chickpea based hummus but with added
char-grilled sweet red peppers. They add a great flavour and nice
colour to this dip.

Today
I combined the hummus with Finnish style potato flatbreads. Also
about these I have already published an article. They are very easy
but tasty breads and even a great way to use your left-over potato
mash. There's not much kneading needed and the dough is easy to
shape. This time I actually managed to get barley and granary flour,
so getting closer to the authentic Finnish ones.

The hummus

150g sweet baby
red peppers

Vegetable oil for
char-grilling the peppers

150g dried
chickpeas

2 garlic cloves

1 lemon's juice

1tsp cumin powder

4tbsp water

5tbsp olive oil

1tsp paprika

1tsp salt

The only downside
of this is that if you use dried chickpeas, you'll have to remember
to put them to soak on the previous evening or early in the morning
if you make this in the evening. I like working with the dried ones
and I also have truck loads of them, so it's good to make a lot of
hummus.

So, soak the dried
chickpeas first and then cook them. First heavily boil them for a
couple of minutes and then let them boil slower for about one hour
until they are soft. Stir occasionally.

In the meanwhile
char-grill the peppers in a grill pan. I used small baby peppers, so
they could just be cut in half before the grilling. If you use larger
ones you can chop them a little bit smaller. First heat some
vegetable oil and then grill and turn the peppers until they have
black charring marks and are cooked softly.

After the
chickpeas are cooked soft let them cool. Chop the garlic and squeeze
the lemon juice into a bowl with the garlic and peppers. Add the
chickpeas and season with paprika, cumin and salt. Add the olive oil
and water and puree into an even paste. Taste again and add more
seasoning or more fluid if needed.

The potato flatbreads

You can make these
breads while the chickpeas are boiling. Then they should both be nice
and fresh to be enjoyed together.

500g potatoes or
potato mash

3dl barley flour

1 egg

1tsp salt

Peel the potatoes
and boil them until soft. Then chase them through a potato ricer or
just mash them as usual. You can of course skip these steps if you
are using a left-over potato mash. Add the egg to the potatoes and
stir. Then add the flour and salt and knead for a while until the
dough is even.

Roll the dough out
thinly and use a cookie cutter to cut out small flatbreads. Place
them on a greased baking tray or baking paper. If you so will you can
also make a larger bread. Typically this is a very easy dough to
shape as the potatoes are good binding agents. Obviously it pays off
using tasty waxy potatoes.

Bake the breads at
180-200C for about 20 minutes until they have received some brown
spots.

24 October 2013

I actually wanted
to name these ones "pretzel sticks" as they are supposed to be
longish cheesy pretzels, but somehow mine weren't slim enough to be
called sticks. So there, let's go with the label bread.

I
have posted my recipe for German style Swabian pretzel rolls before
and I would advise you to read that post through as well before
baking. I have explained there more the science behind this
particular baking method and how I prepared the sodium carbonate
needed in this recipe.

Ingredients

600g flour

25g dry yeast

2tsp salt

400ml water

3tbsp sodium carbonate (to be made from
sodium hydrogen carbonate)

200g mature Cheddar grated

Method

Mix the flour, salt and dry yeast
together and add lukewarm water slowly. Depending on the consistency
add less or more water or flour. Knead it all to an even bread dough
and let it rise in a bowl covered with a tea towel for one hour.

When the dough is rising there's time
to prepare the sodium carbonate that's needed for the distinct taste
of the surface. This is how to make it: Place about 6 tablespoons of
sodium hydrogen carbonate in an oven dish and heat it in the oven at
150-180C for about 30-40 minutes by occasionally stirring. Once the
sodium carbonate comes out of the oven dissolve three tablespoons of
it into one liter of hot water.

Shape lenghty sticks or baguette type shaped
breads of the dough and roll them in the sodium carbonate water.
Leave them in there for about one minute each. Make a lenghtwise cut
over the breads with a knife and sprinkle grated cheese on them.
Place them on a baking tray and bake at 220C for about 20-25 minutes.

These breads are good to be enjoyed as
they are, but feel free to add any toppings of your choice.

22 October 2013

I made this pasta
sauce a while ago when I was in Finland, but I didn't get around
posting it yet. I haven't posted many other pasta dishes lately
either, so that needs to be corrected. On that note may I present you
a simple recipe for a tomato pasta sauce with a bit more substance,
and that substance is tofu. This sauce is very easy to make as I even
cheated a bit and used a ready made tomato sauce this time instead of
fresh tomatoes.

Ingredients

150g tofu

400g tomato
sauce/pureed tomatoes

1 red pepper

1 red onion

1 garlic clove

Fresh chives

Fresh parsley

Ground black
pepper

Salt

Vegetable oil

Oltermanni cheese
(That's my favourite Finnish cheese that I used on that occasion, you
can take your preferred pasta cheese)

Tagliatelle pasta
(any other pasta will also do)

Method

Chop the onion and
garlic finely. Also chop the pepper. Dice the tofu into very small
dices and start the sauce by frying the tofu dices in a pan in
vegetable oil. The tofu needs quite a while to fry with frequent
stirring and turning. Once the tofu has reached a bouncy consistency
and is golden brown, the chopped onion can be added to the pan.

Fry until the
onion is glassy and then add the red pepper to the mix. Fry for
further 10 minutes, then add the garlic and continue frying for a few
minutes more. Finally pour the tomato sauce over the tofu and
vegetables. Season the sauce with black pepper, salt, chives and
parsley. Let it simmer for a few minutes and cook your pasta in the
meanwhile.

Serve the pasta
and sauce with some grated cheese and enjoy the pasta goodness!

21 October 2013

Munchkin pumpkins,
those sweet mini sized pumpkins, are so cute and versatile in side or
main dishes especially in this season. They simply make the perfect
Halloween food and something that kids also enjoy. And as you can see, I bought a pile of them.

Today's recipe is
an effortless ricotta stuffed munchkin pumpkin served with some
vegetable crisps from the shop – easy! This recipe can be easily
expanded for several pumpkins and this is how it's done.

Smoked pepper
hummus (my recipe for this special hummus will be posted here soon)

Rocket

Cut a small lid
off the pumpkin and remove the seeds. Chop the garlic finely and
grate the smoky cheese. Mix the stuffing ingredients (ricotta,
garlic, cheddar and breadcrumbs) together and fill the pumpkin with
it. Place the lid back on.

Bake the pumpkin
at 180C for about one hour until fully baked. Serve it on a bed of
rocket with the vegetable crisps and hummus.

Who is The VegHog?

A vegetarian hobby cook and urban gardener born in Finland, currently living in Denmark. I try to develop my cooking skills by making a wide variety of veggie dishes, some of them traditional and some new creations. My favourites include veggie burgers, squashes, organic and local produce, cider, spelt, rye, pizzas, pasta dishes, risottos and sea-buckthorn.
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